The Globe and Mail

"Green Party Leader Elizabeth May insisted Friday that she hasn't dropped off the public's radar any more than any other opposition politician since the last federal election."

Really? Until I read this morning that Elizabeth May hadn't dropped off the radar screen, my own radar screen at least had been a Green-free zone.

Which is sad, and maybe not entirely her fault.

If you Google May this morning, you'll find website after website repeating this wire story - a journalist covering a party leader on why journalists do not cover the party leader more. One day, perhaps, a journalist will ask other journalists that question, and ask the party leader instead about the substantive issues that real people actually care more about.

It's tough for a smaller party leader to break into the political newstream. And even for major party leaders, it's harder than it should be for politicos to keep the focus on substantive issues of relevance to voters, rather than on political machinations of scarce relevance to anyone outside the press gallery.

Don't ask me why so many smart reporters spend so many of their days chasing trivia. I have a lot of sympathy for political actors who try to raise the debate above the read-and-discard level of the last poll or next confidence vote. Been there, done that.

The media's preoccupation with political games and manoeuvring and tactics and day-to-day process stories are a good part of the reason why, on the face of it, the Canadian Greens look like they've stalled. By and large, the Greens are not part of that.

Nonetheless, I had long thought, and still mostly do, that the Greens have a winning formula in their unique combination of practical environmentalism, fiscal responsibility and democratic reform. Those are three potent appeals, each worthy in itself, and rarely found in combination.

Arguably, all the other parties are less credible on all three of those topics than ever before.

Canada's environmental debate, such as it exists amongst the four "main" parties, is for the most part a matter of election sloganeering, Question Period smearing, the peddling of rarely-kept promises, hollow boasts and non-credible forecasts, and tossing the odd billion bucks at something or other. The objective is mostly favourable press clippings and polls, moreso than actual environmental results.

On the fiscal front, in a mere six months all the parliamentary parties catapulted from "no more deficits, no never" to "the bigger the deficit the better". Sure, whatever.

Not the Greens, though. Their stimulus plan, unlike the other parties', warns against multi-year deficits, and places the emphasis on sustainable job creation instead of hurry-up band-aids. The Greens oppose bailouts, and rather than phoney "stimulus" they promote the essential shift of our economy away from excessive dependence on consumption and toward investment in sustainable growth.

Welcome changes you could come to believe in... if you knew they were available. I don't know about you, but I had to visit the Green website to read about that.

Likewise on democratic reform, the Greens could dominate the playing field. None of the traditional parties are serious about this, or really ever have been. It's mostly a problem of insiders and outsiders. If you're in, the system's pretty good. I'm all right, Jack.

If you're not inside, it's easy to see what's wrong: An excessively partisan House of Commons borne of the winner-take-all electoral system, whose regionally-coarse makeup always fails to reflects the votes cast (a huge Bloc Quebecois bonus, Greens excluded, regional shutouts for the others); a silly 19th century House of Lords, (aka the Senate), and an infantile non-debate about whether to discard or modernize it (pick one); the monarchy, enough said; all manner of senior government positions filled arbitrarily, by a single person, at pleasure, without review - all cloaked in a culture of suffocating secrecy. Demokistan.

Not since the days of Reform has there been a real force in national politics aiming seriously to change any of that. Sure, every party has the mandatory platform chapter about the democratic deficit, lamenting how sick it all is. No one does anything.

But across Canada, there is a big audience, and a big need, for genuine democratic change.

And in B.C. in May, there is an opportunity. As students of Canadian democracy (and few others) will recall, there was an historic Citizens Assembly in B.C., back in 2004. Its recommendation - a more proportional electoral system known as STV - was then approved by 58% of British Columbians. But the referendum rules had been set by the old guard, which unlike the citizens tends to admire the creaky old system which got it there, and so the legislature made 60% the required threshold to adopt change.

There's hardly a government in Canada elected with 60%, and very few MPs or MLAs. To spend billions of our dollars requires a simple 50+1 vote in any legislature. But for citizens to democratize our election rules - now that's a bar politicians set high. For our good, of course. Not theirs.

To his credit, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell recognizes a democratic majority when he sees one, and instead of simply discarding something citizens recommended and nearly two out of three British Columbians voted for, has it on the ballot again on May 12 for a re-vote.

Amongst many establishment politicos, the usual shilly-shallying is underway. As happened with Ontario's similar assembly and referendum, lesser democrats in Campbell's own party would just as soon the whole idea went away. The NDP hierarchy, notorious poseurs when it comes to democratizing the system which puts them in office, are once again mumbling that change would of course be good, although perhaps not today or perhaps not this way. Maybe we can improve on it, strike another committee, publish another paper, meanwhile stick with what we've got. Yadda yadda.

Should these games prevail, the status quo prevails yet again, while citizens lose and the cause of democratizing politics remains a non-threat to the old ways.

Go West, Elizabeth. Go spend a month in B.C. Go lead the fight for an electoral change beachhead. Show that your party is different than the others. Change the course of Canadian history for the better, and change your party's fortunes with it.